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KIDS WHO WILL NEVER BE ON A MILK CARTON INVESTIGATION
NEWS Oliver Rosenberg, Congressman Jerrold Nadler’s first primary opponent since 1998, changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat just four years ago BY MELODY CHAN AND RICHARD KHAVKINE
Shortly after graduating from Yeshiva University in 2007, Oliver Rosenberg’s political convictions began to shift. Rosenberg had been a registered Republican since he was 19 and living in Los Angeles. But having come out as a gay man while at Yeshiva, Rosenberg found that his values were increasingly out of sync with the Republicans, and more aligned with those of the Democratic Party. What had been a gradual process would turn into an epiphany by the end of 2009, when his party allegiance would shift once and for all. Rosenberg was 24. Or so goes Rosenberg’s public narrative, gleaned through interviews with the candidate, his staff and through the website he has set up for his campaign to unseat Jerrold Nadler, the 12-term congressman from the Upper West Side, in the June 28 primary. Public records, however, reveal a more nuanced progression for the 30-year-old Rosenberg. For instance, although Rosenberg’s communications director, Curtis Ellis, said Rosenberg’s affiliation with Republicanism was little more than “a youthful indiscretion,” records show that Rosenberg’s initial voter registration, in 2004, as a Republican in Los Angeles, remains active. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s/County Clerk’s office confirmed on
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2016
NADLER OPPONENT’S MURKY PARTY ROOTS
WEEK OF JUNE
numbers of how many homeless gay youths are in New York City are difficult to pinpoint due to shifting living situations (they often crash on friends’ couches) but the Urban Institute, a DC-based think tank, estimate that 43 percent of homeless youths in New York City identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Many of them are like Moore – not born or raised in New York – but rather, came here searching for a more accepting community only to find themselves living on the street.
As homelessness among LGBT young people continues to rise in the city, the official response is as muddled as ever BY JEFFREY KOPP
When Picasso Moore moved to New York City, he thought he’d be the next Carrie Bradshaw. And whether or not he’d be living on the Upper East Side, he didn’t really care – it was just time for a change. Moore grew up in a Catholic household near Gainesville, Georgia, a conservative Bible Belt city. Since boyhood, his mother was uncomfortable with the way he dressed, the way he talked, and especially his “friends” that he brought over (romantic and sexual partners being passed off as “one of the guys”) – so she tried sending him to summer camps geared to make effeminate boys, in the fear that they would grow up to be gay, more masculine. When Moore remained the same gay boy he had always been, his mother had him attend conversion therapy sessions with a priest, who told him to place a finger down his throat to make himself vomit while listening to Bible verses about homosexuality. When none of that worked and he came out to his mother at 15, she told him to pack his things and leave. For nearly three years after that he lived out of his car in the parking lot of a local Wal-Mart. He managed to graduate from high school after transferring to an online homeschool program, using public WiFi for school and working retail and service jobs to make enough money to buy premade grocery store food. He showered at a friend’s house. After graduating, he sold the car,
Lending a Hand
Picasso Moore, who found himself homeless in New York after being forced out of his home in Georgia. Photo by Jeffrey Kopp packed his bags and bought a plane ticket to New York. He had $2,000 in his pocket from selling the car and was ready to make a new life for himself. “I pictured everything being really romantic and idyllic, and I’d walk down the street and find a job in some kind of gallery,” said Moore. “I thought my problems were because I was in this hick town that was super racist and homophobic and that once I got to this place (New York), things were going to be different. But my circumstance kind of followed me.” At first, everything worked out well
– he rented a cheap hotel room on the Bowery while he looked for apartments, working at a luxury-brand women’s consignment store in SoHo. But when someone stole an expensive purse and the store had to pay back the woman who consigned it, they could no longer afford their most recent hire and Moore was out of job. Then, when he couldn’t afford the deposits on the apartments he saw on Craigslist, his funds dried up and he began sleeping outside in ATM vestibules and on the subway. Moore’s story may be heartwrenching, but it’s not unique. Exact
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FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
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MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20
2015
In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS
The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam. Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services. Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done. Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman and number will tally the type small business of complaints by taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She Over the past on the is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks. President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act go as they please. work between some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come and sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” p.m. and 7 a.m., can’t come of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits
SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS
A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311
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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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Several organizations have taken it upon themselves to get these kids back on their feet, with varying degrees of success. The most well-known is the Ali Forney Center (AFC), which provides a vast array of services for youths like Moore. On 125th Street at St. Nicholas Avenue, the “center” itself is an 8,000 squarefoot facility that looks like a cross between a high school and a hostel; in one section is a hallway, lined with orange and white linoleum floors and an array of offices on both sides where clients can see case managers, social workers, nurses, and doctors. On the other side is a common room, a computer lab, and a space for classes and workshops. Down another hallway are bathrooms, shower, and laundry facilities. At night, the open space is cleared out to make way for cots for LGBT youths to sleep. In addition, AFC rents apartments in several buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn as “transitional housing,” providing a place for AFC’s clients to sleep and get back on their feet. Each apartment is usually a three- to four-bedroom unit with two beds in each room, although some people get lucky and snag a single.
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